The Ruby Moon (14 page)

Alone again, Avery examined the necklace for signs that it might open. Though it was heavy, she had not considered it might be a locket until Kate had showed her her grandmother’s locket ring.

The ring and the necklace looked as if they could have come from the same collection. Discovering a tiny hinge on one side, she pressed it with her thumb.

And just like that, it opened.

To Avery’s disappointment, she found no tiny message inside, but she did find something else. On one half was a tiny sketch of Queen Elizabeth—no surprise. Avery had long suspected she originally owned the necklace.

But the tiny rendering on the other side caught her off guard. An infant, but familiar.

“Kendrick,” she whispered, smiling.

But why would my mother give me a locket containing a portrait of Kendrick, let alone the queen? And how did it end up under Bronte’s body?

Babs must have had it.

At the sound of a rustle, Avery quickly slipped the necklace into her pocket.

A girl she didn’t recognize swept aside her blanket door. She had raven hair and troubled blue eyes. “I need your help,” she said. “Follow me.”

The longer they walked through the web of alleys and tunnels, the more Avery wished she had refused or asked a lot of questions before following the girl. In her grief, she hadn’t thought clearly about the danger in following this girl. She had simply welcomed the distraction.

For all Avery knew, she was about to come face-to-face with Ilsa.

The girl stopped and motioned for Avery to go on without her.

A few tentative steps led to a large, airy chamber shrouded in shadows where a young man stood with his back to her.

“Hello?” she called tentatively.

He turned. She gasped.

“I hoped for a moment alone with you again,” the young man said, with what appeared to be a phony smile. It was the long-lost Edward, and he was shivering. “I suspect the cold and damp are constant down here?”

Avery nodded, kicking at the tunnel floor with her slipper. She had been certain when she bade him good-bye after he brought her back to the castle that she would never see Edward again. And if she were honest, that would have been fine with her. “How did you know where to find me?”

He laughed. “I’ll take that as a welcome.”

But when he stepped toward her, Avery stepped back. “Answer me. Who told you I was here?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does if I’m going to trust you.”

Edward’s smile vanished. “We were friends. What’s happened?”

“Everything’s happened. Earlier today your sister disappeared.”

Avery waited for this news to alarm him, but it didn’t.

“Why are you here?” she pressed.

And then it hit her.
The carrier pigeons! He sent them. Of course! They belonged to my father, and Edward is still squatting in my family home.
Why had it taken her so long to figure that out?

Edward began to answer, but Avery put up a hand. “Can you prove my family is alive?”

He smiled. “Smart girl. I thought you might ask.” He reached into his shirt pocket and extended a fist to her. He slowly opened his fingers.

Henry’s paper boat!

She reached for it and gently turned it over to survey the smudges where Henry’s pudgy fingers had folded and refolded it, so important had it been to him to get every detail right. Their last day in the woods, he had tucked it in his pocket to take to a nearby stream. He chattered nonstop about it as they walked.

“Do you think it will float?”

“What makes boats float?”

“You should make one so we can race!”

She had been annoyed by his jabbering, sulking that she had to spend her birthday taking care of him. Now she swallowed a tide of emotion. They’d never made it to the stream, and she would give a hundred birthdays just to spend one afternoon racing paper boats with Henry, questions and all.

“Where is he?” she asked.

Edward cocked his head. “You know the rules. You agree to help me, and I return you to your family. I need to know you’ll uphold your end of the bargain.”

“How do I know this isn’t a trick?” she asked.

“You don’t, but what do you have to lose?”

“Why do you need my help?” she asked. “You were a scout, and you know I botch every attempt to be helpful.”

Edward smiled. “Best to have on one’s side those with the most to lose if you fail. You, dear girl, are fighting for your family. What could be more important than that?”

Avery desperately searched Edward’s face. “Please tell them I love them and that I’m coming for them as soon as I can.”

“Tell them yourself,” he said with his trademark confidence. “Meet me in the chapel on the other side of the Salt Sea in five days, and I promise to reunite you with your family before month’s end.”

Avery turned the paper boat over and over and sighed. “I’ve heard so much about that wonderful place, I actually began to wonder if it really existed. How do I get there?”

But when she looked up, Edward had gone, his footsteps fading.

The next morning Avery met with Kate, Kendrick, and Tuck and said, “We need to find where they’re holding Babs.”

The others looked at each other before Kendrick finally spoke. “Avery, you need to face the reality that they’ve probably already executed him.”

“But if not? He told us to find him!” she said. “We have to at least try. What if he’s still alive and counting on us?”

Kate nodded. “She’s right.”

“Fine,” Kendrick said. “But don’t get your hopes up. I’ll see what the scouts can do to help, but getting into the Tower will be dangerous.”

“We owe it to him,” Avery said. “And there’s something else. I don’t believe the king is dying of natural causes. He’s being poisoned, and I need you to help me prove it.”

“No one is poisoning the king,” Kate said with a wave. “You know how difficult it would be to slip anything into his food or drink? Everything is first tested by a taster.”

Avery nodded. “Which is why whoever’s poisoning him has to be someone he trusts—like Angelina. Look at his symptoms. It’s not impossible.”

Kate shook her head. “If Angelina doesn’t have a son with the king, it would not be in her best interest to kill him.”

“Which is why I suspect she already has a baby on the way.”

“Still too much risk,” Kendrick said. “What if her baby’s a girl?”

Tuck nodded. “Right. The only way she could risk poisoning the king was if she knew he had an heir to the throne. And since we all know he doesn’t, we can be sure the queen wouldn’t kill him.”

Avery held Kendrick’s gaze.
It’s time to tell your friends that the king’s blood flows in your veins.

Avery, Kate, Tuck, and Kendrick gathered in a tight circle in a room in the kids’ old quarters upstairs and looked down through the grate to where the king lay surrounded by a handful of his closest advisers.

He looked gravely ill.

If the scouts’ reports were accurate, he was about to undergo a procedure that could cost him his life.

Angelina paced nearby, her ladies-in-waiting lurking in the doorway.

Avery sucked in a breath as the medic wielded a glinting knife and the advisers made room. “Brace yourself, Your Majesty.”

He drew the blade across the king’s skin, and the king moaned and closed his eyes. For an instant Avery thought he might be dead already. A line of deep red crossed his arm and pooled into a tiny bowl.

“Barbaric!” Avery whispered.

“No!” Kate said. “Everyone knows bleeding is best.”

Ten minutes later the medic dressed the wound and said, “Now we wait and pray while he rests and nature takes its course.”

Avery knew he meant,
Either way, don’t blame me.

When the four council members disbanded, Kate went her own way without a word, leaving Avery with a sudden urge to follow her.

She gave Kate a head start and then took a new route that led to a room above the king’s private dining area. But regardless what grate she peered down through, Avery saw no sign of Kate. Finally she heard her friend’s familiar laugh and looked down into a small kitchen beside the dining hall where the king and queen were usually served.

The staff seemed to be in a frenzy as someone called out items to prepare for the king in case he awoke hungry. With still no sign of Kate, Avery was about to move on when she heard her familiar voice.

Kate, unhappy, appeared. “You must work faster!” she said, inches from a cook’s face. “His Majesty could awake at any moment. We can’t tell him we have nothing, can we?”

The plainly frightened cook shook her head.

But as she got a better look, Avery realized the young woman only looked like Kate, but she was older! Could it be that Kate was not an only child? This girl must have been the one who accompanied Angelina upstairs the night before the wedding to see her gown. It hadn’t been Kate after all!

But why wouldn’t Kate have ever mentioned a sister?

And if she has an older sister working in the castle, why is Kate hiding among us thirteen-year-olds?

The young woman with Kate’s voice ordered everyone else—including the cook—to carry out platters immediately for the queen and her court. Avery was about to go look for Kate when Angelina suddenly arrived.

A queen had no reason to enter a kitchen, especially when her husband was on his deathbed. Angelina looked over her shoulder, eyes darting.

“Did you bring it?” she asked.

The woman who looked and sounded like Kate slipped a hand into her pocket and handed a tiny box to Angelina, who dumped its contents into a goblet and quickly stirred.

“You know what to do with it,” the queen said, handing her the goblet and patting her on the shoulder before sauntering out of the kitchen.

Avery could hardly believe it! If Angelina
was
poisoning the king, just as she suspected, Avery had to act quickly.

Is it possible Kate knows?

Avery would be racing the clock, so she would start by telling Kendrick. He’d know what to do about Kate.

Avery met Kendrick on the rooftop that overlooked the sea and blurted what she had seen.

He lay back, propping himself on his elbows and staring at the stars, hardly the response she expected. “And you’re sure this
powder
was poison?” he asked, his voice as dismissive as she had ever heard it.

“Of course! She told the girl she knew what to do with it. What else would it be?”

Kendrick shook his head and met her gaze. “Avery, you’re overreacting. The king is on his deathbed, likely being fed every imaginable herb and potion to help him rest and heal, and you jump to the conclusion that some powder his own wife adds to his drink is poison?”

“I know what I saw, Kendrick. I watched the queen clear the room before adding the powder—”

“Come on, Avery, you can’t even keep your story straight. You said the girl who looked like an older Kate sent everyone out first and that the queen looked around to make sure no one else saw her in there.”